Dalit groups such as the National Council of Dalit Christians have been demanding human dignity and equality within the Church. On March 10, the council urged Pope Francis to create a separate ritual Church for Dalit Catholics to end their centuries-old discrimination.
Council coordinator Franklin Caesar Thomas spoke to Matters India about their new demands. Excerpts
“Thus the human dignity and the wealth of the Dalit Catholic marginalized Christian people were ruined for many centuries by the non-Dalit clergies’ caste hegemony and the caste/untouchability linked prejudice.
If the Holy See approves the Dalit Catholic rite, it has nothing to do with segregation, the recognizing and even creating Dalit institutions, in India especially, is not segregation. Segregation is there when the dominant Caste Catholic people and some dominant caste clergies exclude Dalit Catholics. Indian Dalit Catholics are creating things rite for themselves. It is not segregation.
The Pope ought to approve a new separate Dalit Catholic rite, it is the proof that each people can pray to the God of Jesus Christ from its cultural riches and expressions without altering the unity of the Catholic faith, precisely to propose norms for adaptation to the character and traditions of various Dalit Catholic Christian people.
Surely, Dalit rite could surely resolve and remove the caste discrimination forthwith very speedily. Since the control would be in the hands of the committed independent Dalit Catholic Dalit Bishops and all the devotees would be exclusively from the Dalit community, surely there would not be any problem regarding double Cemetery as per the Caste, double hearse human dead body carrying Vehicle as per the Caste, segregation in the Church festivals and worshipping, and so on, because the Dalit Catholic people only be there as devotees like Syro- Malankara Catholic Church and the Syro- Malabar Catholic Church people, non- Dalit people and Clergies’ aggression would not be there.”